Ghana to inspect underground storage tanks across the country

Ghana’s National Petroleum Authority (NPA) will audit all 6,000 underground storage tanks (USTs) and pipelines at gas stations to improve safety.

From the beginning of 2019, authorities in Ghana will start to inspect 1,000 selected USTs that are older than 10 years. There are some 6,000 tanks underground and 3,000 fuel retailing outlets in Ghana.

Due to the lack of tools and capacity, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NPA, Alhassan Tampuli, told the Daily Graphic that they will be using to determine the general condition of the USTs.

The development of a comprehensive database on the test dates and status of USTs for easy compliance monitoring and follow-up tests is also a target.

“We hope to have a baseline data for our monitoring and enforcement of standards (i.e. ensure underground tanks are assessed every five years) and additionally to avoid health, safety and environment incidents, such as leakages, to avert contamination of underground water systems among others,” said Tampuli.

The NPA also wants to renovate the current monitoring systems, mostly based around human reporting, and is encouraging fuel retailer to install an Automatic Tank Gauging System (ATGS) software.